This season hasn’t been much fun for anyone involved with the Dodgers, but Rod Barajas has enjoyed his time in Los Angeles so much that the impending free agent catcher wants to re-sign.

“This is definitely a place I never want to leave,” Barajas told Steve Dilbeck of the Los Angeles Times. “If I could stick around with the Dodgers for the rest of my career, that is definitely what I want.”

At age 36 “the rest of my career” may not be more than a year or two, but do the Dodgers want Barajas back for even 2012?

They have a pair of cheap catching options in A.J. Ellis and Tim Federowicz who could save the Dodgers around $3 million compared to Barajas’ current salary. And while Barajas’ power is very hard to find at catcher his .236 batting average and .289 on-base percentage are among the worst in baseball and he’s thrown out just 24 percent of steal attempts.

If the Dodgers are looking to cut some more corners in 2012 catcher seems like an obvious spot.

Tim Federowicz likely starts the 2012 season at AAA so the Dodgers can do worse than an Ellis (decent on base skills) and Barajas (decent power) platoon as long as Colletti doesn’t give Barajas a multi-year deal. Another one year deal at the $5 million or so he got this year can be justified.

You are kidding, right? Only 5 million for a 36 year old .236 hitting catcher with 15 homers?
They let Russell Martin go because they didn’t want to pay him $5 million. Heck, Russell Martin is SEVEN years younger, having a comparable year and is only making $4 million for New York.

Russ Martin is having a “comparable year” only because he plays half his games in that bandbox of a stadium. If you break down his numbers, you’ll see that he got off to his typical hot start, but now he’s back to where he usually is this time of year. Sure, he provides great defense. But so do Ellis and Barajas.

Also, your facts are correct (the Dodgers didn’t want to pay Martin $5M), but you left out the WHY. He had just broken his hip, wasn’t even able to walk around, and was also going to require knee surgery in the off season. Paying that kind of money to someone with potentially career ending injuries isn’t very bright. It was a pretty difficult choice for the Dodgers, and I believe they made the right one.